


Gray Worlds Collide

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Purgatory, Angst, Badass, Castiel in Purgatory, Croatoan Dean, Dean Prays to Castiel, Dean in Purgatory, Dean-Centric, Deancest December, Desperation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hand Jobs, Humiliation, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Masturbation, POV Dean Winchester, Purgatory Dean, Purgatory Sex, Scared Dean, Self-Denial, Self-cest, Team Free Purgatory, Touch-Starved, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3167042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both Dean and his 2014 counterpart are pulled into Purgatory. Dean comes to understand that the apocalypse has left his counterpart desperately starved for touch, and he makes the decision to give him what he craves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gray Worlds Collide

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to poor Benny.

Evidently, standing too close to exploding Dick gets your ass sent to Purgatory. Fine. Dean was willing to pay that cost, if that was what it took to save humanity. Again. But Castiel was nowhere to be found now. It had been two weeks of running like a mad man and fighting things he had never even heard of before, ducking Leviathans left and right, and he still had not found the angel.

On the other hand, he found something far stranger.

A vampire with a Louisiana drawl had tried to approach him, babbling about some portal. But a man had come up behind him, silent and deadly, and sliced through his neck without a word. He took one look at Dean's shocked face, rolled his eyes, and turned to stalk back where he had come from.

"Hey! Hey! Shifter? That what you are?"

The other man continued walking.

"Why'd you help me? And why did you take my form? I'm talking to you!"

The boots continued carrying the stranger away.

"Hey, handsome! Pretty stupid walking around like a human, you freak! Every creature out here has dinner plans for your liver! Slip that skin and go for something a little less conspicuous, moron."

Finally, the other man turned to him. "I'll slip you out of your skin if you don't shut up. Vamps can hear you a mile away."

Dean strode to his mirror image angrily. "You think I don't know that? I've hunted a few fangs in my time."

"If you had stood there listening to that one any longer, you'd be meat."

"Why the hell are you taking my form? You have to know that paints a target on you. And how come you're the first thing to come near me in a week that didn't try to tear me apart?"

The other man was shaking his head, dark amusement lightening his dirty face. He handed Dean a canteen of water. "Ain't into long pig. And I'm kind of stuck in this form."

"What's that mean?" Dean swallowed the water gratefully.

"I'm no shifter. I'm not a monster. I'm just a human just as you are. I'm a hunter."

Dean frowned. "Wait. What?"

The other rolled his eyes again. "Look. You got no silver to check, am I right? Right. So trust me. I know how weird it is. I've been tracking you for two days making sure you aren't a shifter yourself. When I realized you're looking for Cas? I knew who you were."

"This is messed up."

"Yeah. I've got a lot of people counting on me back home. If I wanted to fight monsters all day, I could have just become a roadie for Lucifer."

Dean stared. "What...?" Then realization flooded his face. He shook his head. "You're...from 2014."

"The hell are you talking about?"

Dean shook his head hard. "I mean, you're me. But in your timeline, Sam..."

The other man growled deep in his throat. His hand clutched a blade he had obviously made himself out of who knew what. "Don't talk to me about Sam."

Dean felt a punch to his stomach. "I'm sorry. It must have been...awful."

His eyes looked at nothing for a moment, and Dean saw his own face, constantly in a grimace, take on such a look of exhaustion that he would have believed this man to be over a decade older.

"I'm over it," he said finally.

Dean watched him. "No. You'll never be over it. You just got to take care of your people, that's all. How's your Cas?"

The warrior snorted, drawing a hand down his face wearily. "My Cas. He's an artist with the ladies. There's that. Our very own freaky yoda. Got his foot crushed last supply raid he went on. Now he's totally useless. He just sits in his tent thing and lets the girls fawn over him. And smokes. Quite the little gardener, the ass. Tomatoes and pot. It's his contribution to the community now that he's laid up." The first real smile touched his lips now. "Laid up doesn't even begin...The guy has turned the word orgy into something else entirely. Casa Erotica would have loved him."

Dean found himself smiling fondly. "Yeah."

"That who we're looking for? A stoned, gimpy human in a land of monsters? Probably dead, man."

The easy way he had said that made Dean angry. "No," he corrected. "Not a stoned, gimpy human. A schizo psych patient, fully juiced up with angel mojo."

The other man stared at him. "Cas...is an angel?"

"A buckets of crazy angel. Yeah. He's...been through a lot."

His counterpart nodded slowly. "It must be nice to have him at full capacity."

Dean frowned at him. "He ain't a weapon, you tool. He's a friend."

A deep frown was his response.

"Okay. I got sent here when I ganked a Leviathan."

"A what?"

"You must have come across them." He described the nasty creatures to him quickly. "This place is crawling with them. Smart, fast and damn strong."

He nodded. "Beheading, right?"

"Not exactly. Look, we can talk on the way."

"On the way where?"

"Someplace else. If the vamps have smelled us, more will be coming. There's something of a shelter this way. I found it day one when I was looking for Cas."

"Lead on, then."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "All the same, you go first."

The other green eyes stared hard. "The matter, Dean?" he snarled. "Don't trust yourself?"

He smiled calmly. "Oh, I trust me just fine. See, I still got a brother. And an angel. They're both out there somewhere waiting for me to find them. But you? You're one cricket shy of a conscience, buddy."

He watched his own face wince. "Sammy? He's alive? So what? You're the me who said yes? To Michael?"

"Course not. I'm the you who was there for Sam in the end, instead of abandoning him to Lucifer."

The words hit hard, and for a moment, Dean wondered if the clenched fists would attack or if the green eyes would weep. Then a shaky smile covered the pain. "Okay then. You're right. You're the smarter of us two, and you're clearly less likely to stab me in the back than I am you. So where is this shelter? I don't like being a walking dinner bell for every creeping, crawling nasty ever made."

So they walked side by side, and Dean realized that no matter how strange it was, no matter how much he disliked this incarnation of himself, it was good to have company again. He knew this man could defend himself. Hell, he had kept himself, Cas, Chuck and the others alive during the Croatoan apocalypse. The two of them would be stronger together than apart.

He just wished it were Castiel and Sam at his side instead. They were far better company.

That night, they had settled in the mouth of a cave. They had done what they could to barricade themselves, not that it would matter much. In any case, it would be nice to share the watch. Neither had slept much in the past few weeks, and trading four hours at a time sounded good to them both.

They had talked a bit about differences between their worlds, but it had only depressed them. They speculated on how each of them had been pulled into Purgatory after one had killed off Dick Roman. They grieved both Bobbys together.

"I don't want to call you Dean," said the man who had helped avert the apocalypse, quietly.

The other turned to him, darkness shading his green eyes. "Yeah. I know what you want to call me."

Dean swallowed. "No. It isn't-You did what you thought you had to do. I get it. We chose different paths, that's all. I just mean if we are going to do this, survive together, it's going to be stupid calling us both Dean."

The other shrugged. "So what? Middle name?"

"Still weird. And not an alias. I was thinking..."

A smile broke over the other man's face. "Colt."

It was the first time Dean truly felt like they were the same person. He laughed quietly. "Yeah. I think it's good. Colt. "

"And I'm the one who should change, since I'm the one who let him down in the end. The one who doesn't deserve to be Dean, Sammy's big brother."

Dean cringed. "Shit, man. I never said-"

"No. I said. I haven't thought of myself as Dean in a long time. Colt. I like it."

The smile was back, but sadder now. "Yeah. The thing that killed the thing that killed Dad and Mom."

"Exactly."

"You take the first siesta."

Colt frowned, and shook his head. "I can't sleep yet. I'm used to doing perimeter checks this time of night."

"My nerves are shot, man. I can't sleep right now. One of us better get some rest. That bunch of leaves we burned isn't going to keep our scent masked forever. We got to be alert."

Colt's green gaze watched him. "In my world, Croats could find you at any second. I'm alert. But, Dean..."

"What?"

"I've been here long enough to realize..."

Dean was surprised to hear the hesitation in his own voice. "What?"

A flush of embarrassment crept across the freckled face before him. "I'm rusty."

"What?" he said for the third time. "How can you be rusty? You live in Apocalypse Now!"

"Yeah. But you don't get close to the Croats. You do, and it's over. I haven't fought hand to hand in a long time. Croats infect you if you're too close. I might be able to outrun and outshoot you, but my hand-to-hand is...rusty."

Dean looked more carefully and for the first time, he saw a deep gash at the back of the man's neck. "Shit. Those vamps weren't coming for me. You must smell like a freaking Biggerson's. C'mere."

Colt slapped his hand over his neck defensively. But the motion just revealed a slice across his forearm.

"How long you had that?"

"Couple days. It's fine. Stopped bleeding last night. The leg was worse." Colt lifted his jeans leg to expose a nasty burn that ranged the length of his calf.

"Holy...you freaking cauterized your whole damn leg?"

"Better than dying in some monster Heaven."

Dean sighed. "I said come here."

Colt glowered at him. "I don't take orders. I give them."

"Settle down, Caesar. This ain't your world. It ain't my world. We going to make it out of here, we got to work together. So stop being a bitch and come here."

A snarling version of himself edged closer to their small fire where Dean could inspect his wounds. "Ain't like you can do nothing about it."

He rolled his eyes. God, he was a pain in the ass. How did Sam put up with him? "I can clean it, moron. And I can patch you up. That's not nothing."

Colt frowned up at him. "How?"

Dean smirked. It was somehow gratifying to know he was a step ahead of this tough bastard. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin fishing hook. He placed it on the end of his blade, and let it sit in the flames for a moment. "Found it on a Leviathan last week. Evidently when there are no humans to chow down on, fish are slightly preferable to werewolf burgers."

"You'd think they would just catch them with their bare hands."

"Some of them are prissier than others." Once he felt sure the hook was sanitized, he pulled out his flask, and gave a sigh.

"You got whiskey?" Colt demanded.

"What? No. Shut up. Yeah, it's alcohol, but I use it for sanitation only." He pulled a long thread from his shirt, and dipped it into the flask. "You don't...you don't need to drink here. Do you?"

Colt cleared his throat. "No. Don't mean I don't want to."

Dean nodded. He understood. It had been a very long time since he had not needed to drink. He had told himself for years that it was just something he did. All hunters drink. Never met one that didn't. Even Garth, pansy lightweight though he was. But in this place, in the absence of hungers like that, he knew some peace. And it only served to show him just how much he had relied on alcohol before.

He ripped off his shirt altogether now, and poured a small amount of his remaining alcohol onto it. Then he grabbed Colt and began cleaning his neck wound without ceremony.

"Shit!"

Dean grit his teeth. "Don't be a baby." It was odd seeing himself this way. Looking down at his own neck, tracing his eyes across old scars he had forgotten and some he did not know. He watched the muscles tense angrily, and he put a calloused hand to Colt's back to provide some sort of comfort.

The gesture caused Colt to seize violently. He leapt from Dean, his knife in his hand at the ready.

Dean put his own hands up. "Okay, buddy. You got to learn to chill. We won't need the Leviathans and the fangs-the adrenaline is going to kill us first."

Colt was swallowing hard, nodding, breathing shallowly. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Dean licked his lips slowly. "Colt," he said quietly, then began again. "Dean."

Colt looked as though being called by his own name filled him with shame. It hurt something inside Dean to see it.

"Dean, how long's it been?"

"What? The hell are you...?"

He could not believe the words spinning from his lips. He had never been so blunt with another man before. But this wasn't another man. Wasn't Sammy. This was him. And there wasn't anyone else there to hear him talking to himself.

"How long's it been since you were touched? Weeks, definitely. Has it been months?"

Colt sucked in his breath. "Of course not. I'm Dean freaking Winchester."

"Yeah. So why are you so jealous of Cas and his ladies?"

"Bite me. Maybe we are better off going our separate-"

"Colt, stop. I touched your back and it was like you'd been electrocuted. Again."

Colt's shallow breathing was becoming stuttered. "I don't need this. You're obviously messed up. Good to know I'm screwed up in every possible timeline."

"What about the girls in your camp, then?" Dean said knowingly. "You'll give in eventually, but you haven't yet, have you?"

Colt's jaw set against the tears forming in his eyes. "Screw you," he snapped. "Those women are under my protection."

He nodded, lowering his eyes to the ground. "It isn't taking advantage-"

"Of course it's taking advantage, you son of a bitch!" Colt hissed. "I ain't running anymore! In and out of a town in three days, tops, fine. Girl knows what that's about. I have never lied about that. I lie about everything but not about that. When I hooked up in a town, it was with every intention of leaving and not coming back."

"Except Cassie."

"I was nineteen. One and only mistake."

"Lisa."

"Screw you, bitch! My head was on the chopping block and I wanted to replay a greatest hit! Turned out to be a case anyway, and she's got a freaking kid. Even if I could have found them after shit went down with Lucifer, I wouldn't have!"

Dean smiled sadly. "You missed a good thing, buddy."

Colt threw his hands up. "This is over."

"No. Because you've been alone since, what? Since Oktoberfest? Or Anna?"

Colt glowered silently.

"And how long has that been for you, man? I mean, that's years."

"Bite me," he croaked again. But there was no venom in it this time.

"Not just women. Sam hasn't been there, Cas is messed up. Other than violence, there's been no touch at all."

Colt was breathing with difficulty now, and Dean knew he was fighting a sob.

"Dude, it's me. I wouldn't say this to another dude in a million years. But I know you. I know me. You're a basket case, buddy. It's why I could never hunt alone. It's all too much, too many monsters, too many horrible things out there. Even a brother to hug it out with is better than nothing."

A small noise ripped itself from Colt's throat unbidden. "Plenty of people live solitary lives."

"That what you tell yourself? 'Cause we ain't like plenty of people. We're Dean Winchester. Touch is what keeps us alive."

"The job keeps me alive," Colt growled. He pulled a hand down his face roughly. "I got a job to do. I got to take care of those people! I screwed up when it came to Sam. I let Cas down, and I can't even talk to him unless we're planning a raid together. I feel like shit looking at any of the women in the camp. I should be better than that. Just looking at them makes me feel like a filthy letch. They're under my protection. Don't matter how strong any of them are. They're off limits."

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry, buddy. I am. Look, just take the first shift and I'll wake you in a few hours. I'll patch you up then."

Colt was shaking head to foot. Dean could feel humiliation and anger radiating from him. But he turned, grabbed his coat from the ground and balled it into a pillow. He gripped his blade tight, and put his back to Dean and lay down without another word.

Dean nodded sadly. This is what he had come so close to being. Unloved, unwound, untrusting. All because he had been too stubborn to patch things up with Sam.

It was never night or day in Purgatory. It was alternately too bright or too dark. Everything was gray. There were not even shadows. But somehow they had formed a sleep cycle. Dean guessed at how many hours passed. No sun to tell by, and watches were irrelevant here. He stared into the fire, listening to the movement of creatures in the dark around them. Those who hunted in the dark were stalking something else, and those who didn't were laying low or as high off the ground as they could get. For a few hours, they would have some rest. When the light came, they would be running again.

Dean closed his eyes tightly. He could hear a soft snore rising from his exhausted companion. He was alone again.

"Cas?" he murmured softly, nearly inaudibly. "Castiel? I'm praying for you, man. Please just be alive. I'm gonna get us out of here. I swear. Hell, Sam's probably cooking something up right now, him and Kevin. Man, if you can hear me...Cas, just hold out. I'm gonna find you. Don't give up."

He sighed heavily. There was nothing worse than the thought of Castiel out there alone. His eyes slid to the figure nearby. He swallowed hard.

Part of him hated that man. Hated him passionately. He was the Dean who had failed. The one who had not shown up to be there for Sam in the end. The one who had meant it when he had told Sam they were done. The one who abandoned his kid brother when he had needed family the most.

But there was another part of him that remembered Hell, who knew a time when Sam had been in the cage, who had run with a brother who had been separated from his very soul, who knew what it was like to feel completely, utterly alone. That part of Dean remembered the days of Famine, when he had been the only being unaffected by the Horseman's hunger, because he was only an empty shell. He could see that part of him lying on the ground beside him. Desperation, loneliness, craving. It was all there, and it was him.

Dean moved with a cat's grace, silent and slow, until he could reach down and touch the other man. He took a few gulps of breath, steadied his nerves, and let his fingers fall down to the man's bare arm.

There was a slight movement as Colt tightened his grip on his weapon, but otherwise, nothing. Dean waited several minutes, then slipped the blade from his counterpart's hand. He placed it far out of reach. Then he gently laid Colt onto his back, uncurling him from a fetal ball, laying him flat, head still resting on his coat.

Dean smiled grimly. "This may be the weirdest thing I've ever done," he breathed to himself. He reached down to Colt's belt, loosening his pants and sliding them down his strong legs, careful to avoid the cauterized wound he had seen. Then he reached up to touch Colt's face with a tenderness that surprised even him. "Dean," he whispered.

Colt frowned in his sleep. But as Dean stroked his cheek softly, the eyes struggled against fatigue to open. "Who...?"

"Don't open your eyes. All right? It'll be easier for both of us that way. Just keep your eyes closed, and fantasize about whatever you want. There ain't no guilt in this place, Dean. Understand? Just think of this as a dream."

Colt obeyed the order to keep his eyes closed, but was powerless to resist leaning into Dean's hand.

Dean smiled weakly. "Is it okay?"

A tear slid from Colt's eye, but still he kept them squeezed closed. "Yeah," he whimpered. "Yeah."

"I'll stop if you want. Just tell me."

Colt nodded, allowing another tear to escape.

Dean's hand caressed his cheek for another moment, then he slid his hands down the man's throat, to his chest, drawing a gasp for his effort. He smiled. There was something pure about this. No guilt. No expectations. Just touch.

Colt nearly shied away from his fingers as they reached his stomach. It was as though the time spent alone had made him oversensitive at a level Dean could not imagine. He ran his hands down the arms, and the man's eyes fluttered, his breath sucked in through his teeth.

"Does it...hurt?"

The green eyes were still shut, but the lips were open just enough to allow Dean to see the teeth clenched together tightly. "It's good," he breathed.

"It does hurt."

But when he removed his hand from an arm, Colt's own hand shot out to clasp his wrist. The green gaze was pleading with him. "Please," he whispered. "It hurts because it's been so long. Please. Don't make me ask for it. I can't."

Dean shook his head, and lowered the man back to the ground gently. "You don't need to ask. I'd never do that. But you do need to tell me if it's too much."

He nodded quickly. "Yeah."

"All right." With that concession, Dean lowered his hands, and touched the arms once again. This time, a desperate moan poured out of Colt's mouth.

"God," Dean whispered, watching himself writhe under his own touch. He shook himself gently. "Just close your eyes and fantasize. Just relax."

By the time his hands found their way to Colt's groin, from up his legs, the man was trembling beneath him. At that most intimate touch, a deep growl jerked itself free. Colt's trembling intensified. His knees fell open helplessly.

Dean watched himself opening up, and a thousand emotions swarmed him. He looked down at his own hips thrusting up toward the touch, insistent, begging. He had never seen himself starving before. It was heartbreaking.

He pulled the remains of Colt's clothing aside without a word. Then he started in on the man's feet. His fingers worked miracles, melting the last of Colt's walls, leaving him open wide. Dean spent time on each aching foot, massaging out the muscles, calming the fear. Then he pushed the ankles apart and edged into the space between.

He hesitated a moment. Seeing himself this way, naked and writhing against every small touch, Dean felt his own arousal but he focused his concentration on his other self. He pressed into the thighs with his thumbs, pushing the knees to the ground firmly, but not roughly. Colt's muscles gave in, strong, hard knots becoming soft flesh under the first touch they could recall.

Dean's hands were like leather. They were scarred and calloused. But no one knew what his own desperate skin needed better than he. He glanced up to ensure Colt's eyes were still squeezed shut, then dove in. The gasp of pained pleasure he heard wrenched from his own throat encouraged him. His hands stroked generously up and down the hardness, feeling the thing he cradled begin to twitch and weep. He explored parts of his own body he never would have been able to reach before, and only slowed once when one of the whimpers expressed more pain than pleasure. This Dean was too starved to be able to limit the touch, but he knew his own skin's preferences and his own voice's protest, so he went back to the stroking caress, and Colt shuddered helplessly beneath it.

It did not take long. The deprivation had been too deep for too long. Once they had gotten beyond the stinging oversensitivity, the remaining ecstasy took its hold, and Dean watched his own body pulse uncontrollably, watched the last, intense, breathless groan wreck the man below him, covering his bare skin in white bliss. Dean stroked his hands gently through it, and whispered, "It's all right, Dean. It really is all right," through a sad half-smile.

He cleaned his hands in his shirt, not caring he would have to find running water in the morning. He lifted the drinking water to Colt's trembling lips, and let him drink deeply.

As soon as he had tucked away the water, he felt the sobs wracking his counterpart violently. Without a word, Dean took the man's head into his chest, and let him weep. They lay that way most of the night, one crying himself into peaceful oblivion while the other hummed _Hey Jude_ over and over again.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always, always appreciated!


End file.
